


there's more to life (than love & pleasure)

by paperdragon



Category: Agent Carter (TV)
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-06-10
Updated: 2015-06-10
Packaged: 2018-04-03 19:24:15
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,407
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4112233
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/paperdragon/pseuds/paperdragon
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>She sees Jack Thompson once again, on the bridge of dreams. She sees the smile on his face, the one that takes him years into the past, makes him look young and innocent, she sees the good heart he wears on his sleeve.</p>
            </blockquote>





	there's more to life (than love & pleasure)

**_i._ ** **_the stairs creak as you sleep it’s keeping me awake_ **

 

His hand is hot against the small of her back, warmth seeping in through the flimsy material of her dress.

Her nails dig into his shoulder – red, red, red – the way his blood looked against the pavement in the moonlight.

 _tonight i have to hunt something that lives on tears,_ Peggy thinks.

Jack presses his palm to the end of her spine, warm and liquefying. Peggy’s nails dig deeper.

He looks down, presses his lips to the corner of her mouth. Peggy does not flinch.

 _i’m like the crow that pecked on the open window,_ Jack thinks, _ma told me to go shoo it but he couldn’t be in the room and out too_

Jack smiles.

 

**_ii._ ** **_everybody knows the dice are loaded_ **

 

She doesn’t love him. She’ll never love him.

Jack knows this. It is a fact.

Jack has never liked facts. Peggy is the human representation of facts. She is logic and sound thinking, with clean lines and neat desks and white curtains.

He enjoys the impulse, the fight, and the rush. He likes the pats on the back and the sound of a shot glass clacking against the wood counter, the feel of a woman under him, soft and submissive. He likes the smell of rain, the sun over him and wet sand clinging to his bare feet.

Jack doesn’t like Peggy. He respects her, he is just a little scared of her, but he does not like her.

He just wants her.   

 

**_iii._ ** **_i didn’t come to london just to fool you_ **

 

He is sitting on his side of the bed, his jacket thrown on the chair in the corner and his tie loosened. His shoes are off and he’s flipping through the case file, disguised in a self-help book’s hardcover.

He acts like she doesn’t notice her. Peggy slams the door shut.

He looks up and he smirks. It doesn’t reach his eyes, cesspools of anger and hurt and hate.

Peggy smiles, condescending.

“I was beginning to think you weren’t comin’ to bed tonight, darlin’,” Jack says. Or rather, Paul. That’s his name on this job.

She’s been graced with Holly. “Sorry, dear, Betty and I just had to go over a few things,” she says. She starts unzipping her dress. “Forgive me?”

He doesn’t smile anymore. Peggy feels the sweet touch of victory on her naked skin.

She sees him swallow, follows the movement of his Adam’s apple. She wonders what his skin would taste like under her tongue.

“As if I could ever hate you, sweetheart,” He says, sickly sweet.

Peggy blinks.

 

**_iv._ ** **_pour some sugar on me_ **

 

She doesn’t even notice. She walks away from the fight, takes the metaphorical highroad and doesn’t notice the car coming the wrong way. Jack grabs her hand, pulls her to him a second before she’s almost hit.

He looks manic, too anxious and concerned to possibly discern that he’s touching her, intimately, the way you would a lover, a relative – someone you cannot live without.

Peggy’s heart keeps thumping, odd background music to the scene going on around them.

 _the princess waited and waited for years and years until her hair fell out and she was a princess no longer,_ Peggy thinks.     

“God, Carter,” Jack says, “You could’ve died. Jesus, you could’ve died!”

Peggy cannot remember who kisses who first. It is ugly, more a collision than a kiss. Her teeth dig into his lower lip and for a moment she can taste copper and rust in her mouth before it’s taken over by the odd taste of bourbon, smoke and burning tobacco, bitter on his tongue – and now, hers.

_accusations of semantics -  i didn’t think you’d come find me - liar – liar - liar_

She presses her hand to his chest, feels his heartbeat at odd with her own, a competition, even now.

They kiss on the street, they kiss in the taxi and they kiss into his flat. Jack grabs her arms, wrenches himself away. Looks at her with wonder and fear, like he can’t quite believe he is doing this, but he knows he is.

Peggy looks him in the eye, wonders what he sees there.

 

**_v._ ** **_i woke you up with poetry and stones_ **

 

This is how their night starts:

Jack kisses her like it is the last time, the way you say goodbye. Peggy kisses him like she’s drowning, like she knows this and plans to use it against him. She unbuttons his shirt and he unzips her skirt. She bites his lower lip, licks it once and he makes a sound at the back of his throat.

She kisses the side of his jaw, gives up on his shirt buttons and instead tears it away. She hears a button ping against the wall. He manages to pull her shirt out of her skirt, unbuttons it far better than she did.

He pushes her against the wall and she circles his waist with one leg, her heel digging into his spine. His lips are at the hollow of her throat and there is need burning through her veins.

When he is on top of her, her back pressing into the mattress and her nails cut bright red crescents into the skin of his back. He pushes into her; she presses her hand to that _one_ spot and comes, right before he sets the rhythm.

When he comes, Peggy licks down his jaw. His skin is salty and warm.

This is how their night ends:

Peggy gets up, slides into her skirt and winces at the soreness. She tucks in her blouse and slips her heels on. She flattens her hair down to something that resembles put together.

She comes around to Jack. His face is blank, but his eyes are shining with something Peggy cannot name. As if this is just one more burden he must bear, another bad deed to his name, something he will have to face every time he will look into a mirror.

This is their scene, Peggy and Jack, the epilogue to a transcendent pas de duex. Peggy kisses him, briefly presses her lips to his.

“Why did you do that?” He asks.

Peggy smiles, kind and indulging. “Because you would rather die than do it yourself.”

 _No more,_ she thinks. _I cannot find you, Jack._

Peggy leaves and closes the door softly, not a sound behind her.

 

**_vi._ ** **_come back home and it don’t feel the same_ **

****

Peggy walks the entire way. When she gets home, she runs the bath, sheds her clothes and slips in. The water is the right side of scalding and Peggy feels it all washing away.

Home is as comforting as it has always been. She feels the tension drain out of her, feels like a puppet who’s strings have been cut, boneless. She remains like this for a good part of an hour, until the water is cold. She smiles.

Peggy sinks beneath the water. Her hair floats around her, strangely mesmerizing. She opens her eyes and through the water looks at her legs, creamy and long.

Peggy blinks, surfaces.

In a few moments, she will get out of the water, change into her pajamas and hear the door bell ring. She’ll go open it with her hair wet and trailing water down the back of her shirt, making it cling. Angie will as always, have brought food per their unspoken agreement and Peggy will greet her undoubted best friend with a hug and a warm smile, the way Angie usually does for her. Peggy will sit in her chair with her book and Angie will curl into the sofa on the opposite side with her own, and undoubtedly keep interrupting Peggy to read out passages in her fake posh British accent.

It makes her smile, makes her feel alright thinking about blond men with terrible personalities and a good heart.

She leans her head against the edge of the tub.

   

      ** _vii._** ** _we all came to dig for treasure_**

****

**_(_** She sees Jack Thompson once again, on the bridge of dreams. She sees the smile on his face, the one that takes him years into the past, makes him look young and innocent, she sees the good heart he wears on his sleeve. She sees him and holds him to her. Margaret Carter sees that illumination in his eyes once more, and she does not let go. ** _)_**

 

 

 

**Author's Note:**

> what the actual fuck is this? no really, someone please tell me what the actual fuck this is. i have no fucking idea. can someone inform of what this fic even is because what even?


End file.
